Wednesday, August 26, 2015

This essay was originally published in the Journal of the RVW Society, No. 42, July 2008.

The deeper one peers into the life
and works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the more enigmatic they both become.
Rarely in the post-romantic world has there been a major composer so reticent
about sharing his inspirations, his beliefs, or even his inner life. Before his
day it had already become common practice for major composers to be, in a
sense, literary men as well. Perhaps the most exaggerated example of this can
be found in Richard Wagner, whose writings seem an apotheosis for the 19th
century German Romantic movement. In his typically paradigm-defining manner,
Wagner wrote volume after volume detailing his artistic ideology, that his
works might be framed within a specific context. This in turn set an example
for many of the composers who followed. Tracing the history of European art
music since the Romantic period, we find the necessity of a dual discipline
emerging—what can be called the composer as critic, or even the composer as the
primitive musicologist of his own work. By the mid-twentieth century it had
become both commonplace and expected that a prominent composer should publish
manifestoes on art in the form of concert notes, articles, or even books. Some
used their literary gift as a means of promoting the musical theories behind
their works, others as a means of defending themselves against newspaper
critics, others still as an almost parallel art form. A fascinating library of
works was thus developed over the decades, including books that are interesting
almost entirely in their own right, only tangentially related to the music they
took as their original raison d’etre.
The writings of Erik Satie, Charles Ives’s Essays
before a Sonata, Constant Lambert’s Music
Ho!, and John Cage’s Silence are
but a few examples of the many books that fascinate even on non-musical levels.
Gone were the days when major composers were considered mere servants to
aristocratic culture. Indeed, the modern world somewhat surprisingly expected
composers to be more than mere musicians: it demanded political theorists,
sociologists, even seers—very clearly men of the written word as well as the
musical score.

It should be noted that this was a
relatively recent development before the day of Vaughan Williams. In the
century before his birth we cannot even imagine the notion of Mozart writing an
extended philosophical text detailing with the implications of The Magic Flute, or propagating a
treatise on The Marriage of Figaro which
subsequently might have driven him into political exile. Before this, the idea
of Bach writing a multiple volume summa on
the spiritual and political importance of cantatas and passion settings is
unthinkable. Still farther back, the notion that anyone in Tudor England would
have considered the theological opinions of William Byrd, in any substantial
and serious way, is at least mildly ridiculous.

I remember once sitting in a graduate seminar, listening
to presentations on 20th century composers, when a very bright
student delivered a thirty-minute talk on the Fourth Symphony of Charles Ives.
He went into great detail, but the detail was not exclusively about Ives, nor
was it primarily about the piece in question. It was primarily about himself:
his experience of the piece, his path toward understanding the complex musical
material in front of him and, ultimately, his own philosophical and spiritual
understanding of life, of which he more or less used the piece as a proof. By
the end of the presentation, the other students had certainly learned about
Charles Ives and his music, but if they were listening carefully, they learned
even more about their classmate.

Regardless of whether or not such a presentation is of
value in a purely musicological sense, it is important to note that this method
of analysis is no mere student phenomenon. It is in fact a practical rule,
albeit tacit, of musicology itself. Most scholars tend to make a strong
pretense to objectivity, but a careful reading of standard musical biographies,
general histories of music, and articles will demonstrate that the history of
music is often used as an ideological battleground, fraught with the agenda of
whatever scholar is at hand, rather than as a true discovery of the musician in
question, thoughtfully and carefully placed in his or her own day and age. Thus
we have a conflicting and even contradictory history of scholarship on any
given composer or subject. For example, if we read enough we can learn of the
Marxist Beethoven, the Fascist Beethoven, the Freudian Beethoven, or the
Feminist deconstruction of Beethoven. Each of them will claim to give us the
“true” Beethoven, or at least purport to have placed him properly for the first
time. But in each we will also note that some quotations of the composer will
have been exaggerated, others will have been suppressed; some important pieces
will have been ignored; other, less significant pieces will have been suddenly
discovered for the unheralded masterpieces they truly are. To anyone critically
following the bias of the scholar, it will become obvious that in many such
cases Beethoven is used less as a subject for study than as an object—even to
the point of becoming a pawn in what is often a distinctly non-musical game.

All of the great composers have been subjected, over and
again, to this sort of analysis. These days, it can sometimes seem as though it
is the only analysis that is ever done. But despite all of this, the majority
opinion of scholars comes to something like a general agreement on a reasonable
position: Bach isn’t regarded as a covert atheist, nor is Beethoven regarded as
a proto-Marxist by reasonable scholars, though both claims have been made.
Likewise a reasonable consensus exists for most of the major composers in the
Classical Canon.

Ralph Vaughan Williams, however, is an exception. He is
not considered by the majority of scholars to have been one of the most
important composers of his era. Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ravel, even
Shostakovich and Prokofiev tend to overshadow him in general survey texts.
Remembered as a primary factor in the English Musical Renaissance of the early
20th century, he is studied closely only by a handful of scholars,
and all too often relegated to a “second tier” of “nationalist” composers (most
of whom are considered, rightly or wrongly, to be derivatives of the “greater”
composers). Thus Vaughan Williams hasn’t been as hotly debated; fewer
ideologues have tried to claim him as their own; fewer hostile scholars have
tried to deconstruct him and his work. In one sense this can be good: in so
being considered, his life and music have avoided a variety of misreadings. But
in another way, this can be very bad, and stunt our understanding of his
artistic achievement, particularly if all of the small circle of Vaughan
Williams scholars hold one narrow ideology, or reductive outlook, unanimously.
Imagining this happening to Beethoven demonstrates how detrimental it might be:
if all of the major scholars agreed that he was a proto-Marxist, and every
quotation of the great composer running counter to this hypothesis was
overlooked, others exaggerated, our deeper understanding of his music would
suffer. What would happen to interpretation of the Missa Solemnis? Likewise if Bach criticism was to be dominated by
scholars without sufficient background in Christian thought, our understanding
of his artistic achievement would be hindered, if not maimed irreparably. And
yet this, without exaggerating matters, is analogous to the situation
confronting the person who would seek to understand and appreciate the music of
Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Since the time of his death, there has been one scholarly
opinion regarding the religious beliefs of Ralph Vaughan Williams: it is taken
for granted that he was an atheist as a young man, and that he later drifted
into agnosticism defined in a narrow and reductive sense, which he held for the
rest of his life. Every other opinion, be it Hubert Foss’s flirtation with the
word “pantheism” or Byron Adams’s suggestion that RVW used scripture in
non-Christian ways, is merely a variation or development on this unanimously
assumed theme. Over the last half century, the most frequently cited quotations
on the subject have become so officially canonized and engrained that no one,
to date, has gone back to look at the strength of the quotes themselves. What
was their actual context? Who was the source? Are they being presented in a biased
manner, or do they come from a biased source? What was Vaughan Williams
actually referring to when he made them? None of these questions have been
asked, nor has it been pointed out that the reductive view of Vaughan
Williams’s supposed atheism and agnosticism has been hung, for over four
decades, on the strength (or weakness) of only a handful of these quotes.

More interesting then this, however, are the quotations
ignored, which seem to weaken (or in some cases contradict) the prevalent
theory of VW’s beliefs. Finally, the pieces themselves speak very strongly, and
only when we are willing to question the assumptions of the major scholars are
we able to uncover the true depths of pieces such as the Five Mystical Songs, Sancta Civitas, the Dona Nobis Pacem, and The
Pilgrim’s Progress.

The remedy is not so simple as illuminating the depths of
pieces, however, as a great deal of dogma has been written about the religious
beliefs of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Scholars seemingly without enough knowledge
of Christianity, Church history, theology and mysticism have made
pronouncements on the subject, buttressing a narrow understanding of VW’s
beliefs with a great deal of misinformation, false assumption, and in some
cases, misreadings of even the quotes they have thought supported their
conclusions. It will therefore take a great deal of unraveling before the
situation can be remedied.

Vaughan Williams the
atheist?

In his brief overview of the generally prevalent attitudes
towards Vaughan Williams’s beliefs, John Barr sensibly opts for a chronological
exposition, documenting the major opinions held by scholars at each stage of
the composer’s life.1 Beginning, then, with
VW’s childhood, Barr points out that the composer was the son of an Anglican
clergyman, who died while Ralph was little more than an infant. Significantly,
he also mentions that his mother, Margaret Vaughan Williams, was a Christian
with “strict evangelical leanings,” though he couldn’t remember exactly where
he had read this. It is no surprise that it was difficult to locate the exact
source for the quote, as it is not to be found in any of the primary materials
a Vaughan Williams scholar might immediately reference for childhood material.
Rather, the description of Vaughan Williams's mother as a “strict Christian”
comes from Byron Adams’s article, “Scripture, Church and culture: biblical
texts in the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams” published in 1996.2

a preliminary studyby Eric Seddon

This essay was originally published in theJournal of the RVW Society, No. 26, February 2003; the first in a series reevaluating the religious symbolism and drama in the works of RVW. From the time of its premiere at
Covent Garden on 26 April 1951, Ralph
Vaughan Williams’s operatic masterpiece, The
Pilgrim’s Progress, has been at the very least enigmatic for those who
would seek to understand, categorize, support or criticize it. One of the first
points of contention usually raised is the question of its suitability for the
operatic stage. Its critics point to what they consider to be the static nature
of the action, often described as independent tableaux rather than scenes
flowing one from another. They point further to the content of those tableaux;
suggesting that such noble, religious sentiment ought to be performed in
cathedrals rather than opera houses. Finally, they point to the fact that the
composer himself referred to the piece as a ‘Morality’ rather than as an
‘opera.’ All of these arguments tend to put the supporters of the piece on the
defensive from the outset. One feels that, as a musicologist, one must deliver
an apology for the piece rather than focus on its unique qualities. Indeed, to
discuss how unique the work is seems dangerous, as it might further alienate
the piece from a potential staging. To compound the problem, those of us who
recognize the piece’s dramatic qualities, who actually find in it a supremely
dramatic statement, often find ourselves
in the most difficult of positions:
trying to prove what to us seems self evident. The temptation even exists to
get a bit frustrated with RVW himself for having named the piece a ‘Morality.’
It begins to seem that if he had just named it an ‘opera’ in the first place,
he’d have saved us all a lot of trouble in trying to get it staged.

This temptation, though, is better
off ignored. The fact is that in designating the piece a “Morality,” the
composer was illuminating the sub-genre of the piece rather than obscuring it,
and that such a designation does not at all separate it from the general canon
of operatic compositions. Thus, instead
of defending the piece by a discussion, primarily, of its interior virtues in an isolated fashion,
this article aims to do something slightly different: to place The Pilgrim’s Progress in the context of
Vaughan Williams’s thought and in the context of the 20th century, and to
compare and contrast the opera’s achievement with it’s most similar
contemporaries. Two other composers’ operas in particular, produced in the same
decade, will help to illuminate the unique, but necessarily operatic place in
musical history The Pilgrim’s Progress
occupies.

During the 1950’s three major
composers, none of them particularly known for operatic endeavors, each
produced masterpieces for the stage. In September of 1951 Igor Stravinsky, who
had long wanted to write an English language opera, produced The Rake’s Progress, an opera in the
form of a “moral fable” based upon Hogarth’s 18th century paintings, with text
by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman. Earlier in the same year, as part of the
Festival of Britain, Ralph Vaughan Williams produced the results of four and a
half decades of work when The Pilgrim’s
Progress was staged at Covent Garden. The third of this interesting
operatic triptych, Poulenc’s Dialogue des
Carmelites, was produced in Milan’s famed La Scala in 1957. It was based on
the true story of the execution of 16 Carmelite nuns during the French
Revolution.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

For all of its mannerisms and 19th century zeitgeist, James Russell Lowell's 1855 lecture, "The Function of the Poet," remains an important document to American literature. It was delivered too early for him to have read or taken seriously the claims of Walt Whitman, which is a distinct advantage: he wasn't yet in the position to inadvertently soil himself by missing the brilliance of the New Yorker (a task which he accomplished later in his career). As a result, much of what he wrote resonates strongly and freely with Whitman's artistic goals.

Some of Lowell's historical ideas are admittedly off the mark, such as when he suggests that, in early times of any culture, the "poet and priest" were the same person. This isn't true, though it probably sounded good to undergraduates at the time. But all quibbles aside (quibbles have all too often buried important works) many of his points serve as prescient, and permanent, warnings to the nation. The essay as a whole reminds us that the function of poetry cannot be reduced to materialistic concerns--that art serves as more than a reminder, but also as a guide to that which is more important. More than this, he provides insight into the nature of how poetry relates the outer person to the inner person--a rather profound, and clearly stated, understanding which, when expanded, can show how damaged or incomplete one might be without the exercise of poetic thought and sensibilities.

Because he was less bombastic, in a sense, and certainly more contained in his scope than Emerson, Lowell's lectures don't have the same reach or grandiose complexity. There is a humility to them, despite his reputation, and because he is bold enough to present his ideas nakedly, both his minor errors and his more solid brilliance shine through clearly. These days, when scholars and artists are so afraid to make a mistake that every opinion is footnoted, or thought recycled, it's nice to read such risks. And in the end, if we don't all start risking our real voices, what will become of us? A nation of muted puppets, waiting for a master ventriloquist, is a macabre scene.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

As a Catholic father of seven children, I was cautiously optimistic when The Jim Gaffigan Show was announced--particularly as the promotional materials suggested he would be drawing from his real life as a Catholic father of five. Now I don't watch a whole lot of contemporary comedy, but if Gaffigan is on and I'm flipping by, there's a certain protocol, a bit of a "stop, drop, and roll," which I endorse:

Any man who can transform the term 'Hot Pockets' from a culinary abomination into three syllables of permanent comedic value is a flat out genius. Let's not kid around here: I don't wish to tarnish a great man in a blog review.

Eric Seddon

I

N the
early spring of 1949, C.S. Lewis read part of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, still in manuscript, to
J.R.R. Tolkien. Expecting enthusiasm from his longtime friend and colleague, he
received instead what would remain Tolkien’s permanent dismissal of the work.
The assessment was blunt and unequivocal: Tolkien deemed the book almost
worthless—a carelessly written jumble of unrelated mythologies. He simply
detested it (Sayer 312, 313).Although
shaken by this terse and unexpected verdict, Lewis later sought the opinion of
Roger Lancelyn Green, whose encouragement lead to the ultimate decision to
finish the book (Green & Hooper, 241). It went on to become one of Lewis’s
best sellers. The first of what eventually became The Chronicles of Narnia, it has been continuously in print ever
since. Now half a century from its first publication, the place of TheLion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe seems increasingly remarkable. Like The Lord of the Rings it remains
embraced and even celebrated by a society steadily annexed by secular values.
Its success both in book sales and, more recently, at the box office have even
resulted in the somewhat bizarre spectacle of secular critics writing polemical
tracts attempting to marginalize, if not deny, the Christian elements of the
plot.[1] Thus Narnia’s success has remained somewhat
oddly stunning—the greatest testimony to its place in literature being this steady
endurance in the public imagination, despite the societal shifts since its
first publication.

Monday, July 13, 2015

[ The following was originally published on my other blog, The Jazz Clarinet, but I have always felt the aural poetic of music was essential to understanding American culture, and therefore that there is a certain cross over quality between the two blogs. Sidney Bechet is an essential figure in jazz history. Along with Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong, he is one of the founders of jazz in the recorded era. An argument can be made that his solo style has influenced, directly or indirectly, nearly every reed player since his day. Yet even if he hadn't influenced players by his musical brilliance, the observations of a lifetime spent in music which were collected for his autobiography would remain an essential text in American literature. As a jazz musician, I've had the privilege to learn a history that few white kids of my generation got to know--a history of America as seen through the eyes and lives of the great African-American musicians who created, pioneered, and developed the music we refer to as jazz. That history can be confrontational, as it calls into question many of the egalitarian myths that have propped up our national self-esteem for so long. But it is also deeply beautiful--a true story of the most terrible of hardships overcome by faith, hope, and love. Such is the story of the great Sidney Bechet, who recounts the history of his family from slavery through his artistic achievements as a major figure in world art history.Bechet's insights regarding the Blues are essential for our understanding of the most important indigenous musical system of America, and his penetrating discussion of commercialism remains one of the finest tonics to a perpetual American disease.The following provides just a few quotes of a book that I think ought to be read in full by every American high school student. E.S. 7/13/2015 ]

Monday, June 29, 2015

Though his particular gift for wit fell out of fashion in literary circles of the early 20th century, Washington Irving was once understood as essential to American literature. He could count among his admirers the likes of Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, and Mark Twain. Despite his stock having fallen in academia, there remain very good reasons to revisit him today, as he is arguably our foundational satirist.

While his gifts as a writer were admittedly middle brow and inclined towards a light, popular style of prose, Washington Irving seemed to know of the fundamental cultural challenge to the revolutionary mindset: that our greatest intellectual temptation would be to a self-inflicted amnesia. As a nation of immigrants, most of us are descended from people who left behind their previous nations, previous home towns (often the familial home from time immemorial), and in many cases did so without entertaining the hopes of seeing those left behind again. While this is often accompanied by a particular sort of bravery and ingenuity, it can also be haunted by the phantoms of what was left behind¯so much so that we can be in denial of who we were and to what institutions, philosophies, and values we owe our beliefs and ideals.

His first book, Dietrich Knickerbocker’s History of New York, capitalized on the amnesia of New Yorkers by a mix of biting satire and real history of the Dutch reign in Manhattan. The book is foundational to any study in American humor: wild, free, self-deprecatory, and merciless to the public figures of his day; by turns lyrically funny, absurd, and reflective. Without it, we might wonder whether American humor, from Twain to the Marx brothers to Jerry Seinfeld to Stephen Colbert, would have taken the particular shape it did.

When Americans, always prone to utopian daydreams, were in danger of taking themselves far too seriously--when the term “manifest destiny” was embryonic--Dietrich Knickerbocker rolled his bugged-out eyes, chuckled gruffly, and whispered into the ear of a young nation, “Remember thou art mortal.”

Sunday, June 28, 2015

James Fenimore Cooper's masterpiece is a wild romance, like a river with tributaries and rapids shooting from all
directions. Semi-comedic episodes intermingle with the terror of
the inferno, history vies with love story, the plot lurches, drags, and sprints
until one peak among many, like one of the Adirondacks in which so much of the
book is set, looms in stillness above the rest. Just when it seems as though all strands of symbolism in The
Last of the Mohicans can't possibly be tied together, a silence falls over the book as Cora Munro, the book’s heroine, pleads
desperately to the Lenape chief, Tamenund, in a final attempt to spare herself
and her sister from being handed over to the Hurons. The moment is a study in
character and symbolic depth:

Cora bowed her head…and, for a
bitter moment struggled with her chagrin. Then, elevating her rich features and
beaming eye, she continued in tones scarcely less penetrating than the
unearthly voice of the patriarch himself: ‘Tell me, is Tamenund a father?’[1]

Adding
power and symbolism to the question is Tamenund’s answer, framed in majestic
prose:

The old man looked down upon her from his elevated
stand, with a benignant smile on his wasted countenance, and then casting his
eyes slowly over the whole assemblage he answered: ‘Of a nation.’

The
beauty of this moment conjures up sensations that range from Abraham, who was
told by God that he would be “a father of many nations” (Gen. 17:4), to George
Washington, already revered in Cooper’s day as the father of the young American
Republic. Yet it is also haunting, as we know that Tamenund’s nation is
disappearing: the time for the destruction of his people is at
hand. Symbolically there is a
tension between these visions of fatherhood: will Washington’s fatherhood be
permanent, like Abraham’s, or is it destined to fall, as did Tamenund’s? In
Tamenund’s answer is posed a further question to a young nation building upon
the ruins of an older one.

The implication of ruins is significant. Two of Cooper’s contemporaries,
Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne, pointed out that America had
no physical ruins, such as were to be found in Europe. Irving used this as an
occasion for his untiring wit when addressing the English readers of Bracebridge Hall, slyly lamenting that,
unlike theirs, his native land could not “boast of a single ruin.”[2] Hawthorne took a more condescending tone
(towards all) when suggesting that America’s lack of ruins made the writing of
romance impossible. America, he suggested, possessed “no shadow, no antiquity,
no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong,” and therefore could have no true
romantic literature. “Romance and poetry, like ivy, lichens, and wall-flowers,”
wrote Hawthorne, “need ruin to make them grow.” [3]

What
Hawthorne failed to realize, Cooper knew intuitively; that the external ruins
of a society, be they the abbeys of the English countryside or the great Roman
Aqueduct, are not the real ruins, but merely the architectural echoes of a
deeper tragedy—the extinction of a way of life, the destruction of a society. The Last of the Mohicans, which predates
Hawthorne’s comments on the subject by nearly four decades, remains a
preeminent example of American
Romanticism precisely because Cooper identifies a deeper source of shadows, in
the extinction of a noble race of people, whose society contained some real
virtues worthy of our admiration and sympathy. These ruins are made more
haunting by the fact that there are few physical remains: An entire people, once brave,
noble and free, is simply gone. Thus there are few moments in literature to match the
tragic proportions of the Mohicans
finale. Perhaps the best parallel is the lamentation of the Geatish woman in Beowulf, for her song bewails not only
the death of their great hero, but is a harbinger of the inevitable extinction
of her race. These are not merely fading monuments or crumbling walls, however
poignant they may be, but human ruins, and the anguish is written not on the
landscape but upon the human heart.